iOS · est. ~3000 BCE
GAME OF THE SNAKE
Hide your marbles. Read your opponent. Crawl the length of the coiled serpent, past a lurking lion, to reach Ra at the centre โ one of the oldest board games on earth, rebuilt for iPhone and iPad.
The game
Mehen boards have turned up in Egyptian tombs dating back to roughly 3000 BCE โ carved as a coiled serpent, its body divided into dozens of numbered chambers spiralling in toward a single space at the centre. No rulebook survived. For thousands of years, nobody has known exactly how it was played.
This app follows the marble-guessing ruleset reconstructed by James F. R. Masters in his 2024 paper for the Interdisciplinary Egyptology Journal โ one educated reading of the evidence among several, and, as far as we know, its first playable digital form.
Masters, J.F.R. (2024). "Mehen: The Game of the Snake." Interdisciplinary Egyptology Journal, Vienna.
How to play
Mehen isn't won by rolling well โ it's won by guessing well. Every turn is a small act of bluffing, spiralling toward the same conclusion: whoever reaches Ra first, wins.
The tail
A piece enters at the space equal to its owner's hidden marble count, minus one. Where you choose to hide sets where you begin.
The coil
Secretly cup one to five marbles. Your opponent calls a number. Guess wrong, and the hider advances a piece; guess right, and the guesser takes the move โ or unleashes something worse.
The lion's pin
Win a guess, and you may pin an opponent's piece with a lion. It's frozen until its owner wins a marble challenge to slay the beast and break free.
Ra's sanctuary
First player to walk every one of their pieces from the tail to the centre space claims the game โ and the favour of Ra.
Built for the board
A modern engine underneath a very old game โ animated, tactile, and built to remember where you left off.
Every move slides your piece along the true spiral path of the board, not a jump cut.
Finishing a piece triggers a small particle flourish โ a moment of payoff after a long crawl.
Marble reveals, lion roars, and the triumph at the centre, with graceful system-sound fallbacks.
Your game state autosaves after every turn, and picks back up exactly as you left it.
An adaptive side-by-side layout puts the board and your controls where your hands already are.
A collapsible history of the last sixty moves, for replaying exactly how the game turned.
Opponents
The AI doesn't just play randomly at the higher levels โ it watches how you hide, and adjusts.
| Level | Hides | Guesses | Unleashes the lion |
|---|---|---|---|
| ๐ญ Easy | Purely at random | Purely at random | Never |
| ๐ฟ Medium | Weighted toward the extremes | Weighted toward the centre | Never |
| ๐ Hard | Favours its least-used counts | Tracks your marble history | When you're 12+ spaces ahead |
Take it with you
No account, no ads, no in-app purchases โ just a coiled board, a handful of marbles, and an opponent who's paying closer attention than you'd think.